


Talk Talk

by tiny_gangster



Category: In The Flesh
Genre: AU, Depression, Explicit Language, M/M, NSFW, Prostitution, Simon Is Alive, explicit drug references, explicit needle reference, future suicide references, kieren is a pds prostitute, minor use of sexual slurs (aka one reference), post rising obviously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-02-27 09:34:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2687861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiny_gangster/pseuds/tiny_gangster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Simon, we’ve talked about this… you’re erratic, you’re not thinking things through,” Doctor Russo said, the dark haired man shifted in his seat. The vague itch beneath the fine knit sleeves of his green sweater peeked and Simon had to stop himself from letting his fingers dive under to bite at the tracks. </p><p>“It’s not the same as last time.” The man assured, his soft blue pools darting away for a moment before they came back to rest on the others dark ones. He stared him down, as if daring the man to question. </p><p>“You said that last time,” He reprimanded, and  Simon felt condemned. This was going to be what saved him, Simon could feel it – this boy, this ethereal creature; it was real this time.</p><p>“Kieren’s different.”  </p><p>(Au in which Simon is human, Kieren is a PDS Prostitute, and Simon falls in love too easily.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Like Real People Do

Simon didn’t know exactly how he got here, but the press of the needle in his hand had stopped him questioning it. He could feel the heat burn up his arm, the sting of his skin where he’d pricked it. The place was a mess, filthy and water stained and Simon wondered not for the first time if anyone lived here at all. Since the rising too many buildings had been condemned, left, squatters took what was left of them if they didn’t mind the ominous rusty stains left on the damp threadbare carpet. There was furniture, so somebody must live there. The windows were boarded, reinforced. It was just another whole in the wall.  He turned his head, and stopped dead.

The first thing Simon noticed about him were legs. Legs for a mile. Then were the hip bones, they were sharp, pressed into the boys skin like he hadn’t eaten for a week, the clothes he wore made him small and long and Simon thought elegant – and then it all came together slowly, the gaping hole in the back of his neck, the pale skin that had nothing to do with the lighting. The veins, delicate spindly things on his face, his eyes were like pearls, milky and bright, and the golden crowns that made up his lashes flashed with the strobing. He was beautiful. One of the few untouchables –as Simon’s dad had put it, like they were living in some ancient Indian caste system– that Simon thought to want, to touch. He wasn’t so much dancing as swaying with the music, out of time, like he wasn’t even listening to it. Simon watched him bat his lashes and part his lips and he knew it was over. He had to speak to him, he had to say something.

The crowed swelled as the track changed, and over the deafening sound of it Simon made his move. It took him time to wend through the crowd. He’d never spoken to one before, the PDS. His father didn’t think much of them, his mother… well, she was the reason why. Not everyone survived the rising. She joined the ranks of the dead. He wasn’t sure what to expect, he looked normal, well- for a walking corpse. He wasn’t wearing cover up, no contacts. Simon wanted to ask him why. When everyone hid, disguised behind make up and colored glass, why this boy? Why so bold? He didn't hide what he was. Was that something he could ask? His palms felt clammy, he wasn’t sure if it was because of the heroin pumping around his system or the line of _his_ neck when he turned his head just so.

“Hey,” He said. He didn’t know what else to say. Kieren’s body shifted, leaning back toward the wall he’d stood by. He tilted his head, he was just barely shorter than Simon, a couple inches? Three or four more like. And he was young. Had been young.

“Hey.” Kieren said back, leaning up to say it by Simon’s ear and he felt the cool brush of his lips on his ear lobe. It froze all the air in his lungs. What was he meant to say, what more could be said?

“You’re alone.” Simon stated, nearly hit himself. In any normal circumstance he would offer to get him a drink. But he knew the boy couldn’t drink.

“I am,” He snickered and Simon thought he heard angels sing in his voice when he snickered like that. He had this nasty habit, attached to boys like they were his anti-drug, his antidote. He looked like the last, big eyed and long legged and thin, he could wrap his arms around the boy twice, they were all the same, had the same features to the point they could be categorized by the dip of their spines and jutting hips; he had a 'type' and was ashamed. But _he_ was different. He could bite into his marble skin and never leave a mark, he'd be like ice against him, like water. The haze of his shot started to turn his mind in on itself. And Simon noticed one of two things. The boy was too practiced, the way he stood, the clothes he wore. He had a purpose, he was designed to draw a man like Simon out of the fray.

“How much?” He half slurred, the fair-headed didn’t even look offended. So he was right.

“Depends on what you want.” He answered, and his voice was so gentle, it was so gentle that it made Simon sick to think, he was so young, a teenager maybe, he couldn’t’ve been more than eighteen and his voice was as sweet and sickening as honey.

“A name?” Simon tested, and the other was caught off guard. He liked that, the expression that crossed his face for just a few bare seconds.

“Kieren.” He answered.

 _Kieren,_ Simon committed that name to his memory. The hard throbbing of the music was making Simon’s head dizzy and he shook it to clear it. A touch like ice pressed against his fingers, struck like lightning up his nerves and jarred him.

“Let’s get out of ‘ere,” It was Kieren, his fingers had brushed Simon’s, taken them into his hand. Simon’s heart gave a single particularly hard thud. His mouth was dry. He wondered what it would be like to kiss him. He wondered what he would feel like, if his skin would be as soft as it looked. Kieren didn’t move as smoothly when he stood up straight and started to weave through the crowd. Simon’s hand in his. Nobody looked, nobody payed any attention to them at all. It was like they were invisible. Kieren’s gait would’ve made Simon laugh if he hadn’t been so twisted over him already, if he wasn’t already enthralled in seconds. This was his problem, this was just exactly why he kept desperate for another fix, because they broke his heart and then he found another.

Kieren seemed to know where he was going and it made Simon wonder if he lived here, but he didn’t speak, his tongue was heavy in his mouth, all he could do was stare at the gaping hole in the back of the boys neck and the copper hairs on his head, the pointy shoulder blades he could see through the tight shirt he wore.

The room was dark, Kieren tugged him inside it and closed the door, switched the lock. Suddenly everything was dull and dimmed but Kieren. Kieren was sharp, angular, bones and ashen skin. Simon reached out with trembling, hungry hands. Kieren breezed past them with ease. He leaned up and kissed Simon like he’d kissed people many times before, he was practiced, worked Simon’s warm lips, malleable, his own were cold and vaguely chapped and Simon was shocked by the consistency. They were still lovely. Simon was starved, and his hands grappled onto Kieren, brushed over his cheeks and then his neck, settled on his shoulders and balled the thin material of his shirt.

Kieren made a soft sound, parted his lips and Simon kissed him open mouthed. He lapped at his tongue and bit at his lips until Kieren made another of those heavenly sounds. His hands fell to his waist, balled the shirt and stuck up under it to touch his cold skin. It was like touching a living statue. There was no inkling of warmth, nothing. He pushed further, made Kieren’s shirt ride up until the boy grabbed onto the hem, as if to remove it, but Simon stopped him.

“Keep it on.” He urged, raised his fingers to capture Kieren’s chin, hold it so his gaze fixed with Kieren’s wide eyes. The boy nodded, and Simon’s hands slithered back, poked around up under it, brushed over his sides, felt the notches of his spine and tugged his body closer, close enough for Kieren’s back to arch where his broad palms lay spread. He can’t feel it, but Simon doesn’t know that, because he pretends that he can, and it’s flawless.

Simon was hard, it didn’t take much, he only had to bow his head and nip Kieren’s neck, run his hands up and down his body to want him. He pressed into the boy further, praying he’d understand, he’d feel him. He did.

Kieren’s eyes –heavy lidded now, it was like he could read Simon’s thoughts- flickered downward. The smirk that took his lips was too practiced but Simon didn’t care. Kieren’s gentle hand, long fingers slid beneath his waist band, beyond his underwear and gripped his throbbing cock. Simon let out a hard groan, a growl, right against Kieren’s collar, and the boy crooked his fingers twisted his hand and dragged them upward. Kieren’s cold fingers touched him breathless.

Simon couldn’t handle it any longer, the teasing; soft caress of his gentle hand. He grabbed hold of the other and he dragged him none too gently toward the bed. Kieren didn’t complain when he was shoved into the mattress. That’s all it was, a mattress on the floor with a sheet thrown over it, not even fitted. Simon crawled between his legs and kissed him again, faster this time, bruising but Kieren couldn’t bruise. His hold on the boy’s wrists tightened, he held them up above his head, stopped him from moving as he moved his kisses to his neck, shamelessly rolled his hips down against him. The sounds he made, laying beneath him, they were sinful, and Simon could barely breathe when Kieren moaned like that, turned his head and rose beneath him to meet his movements. Simon’s grip relaxed, let up on his wrists and travelled down his arms, reached his sides and kept going until he could feel the boys thin thighs pressed around him, he tugged at the waist band, tugged again. Kieren’s hand’s moved, helped him. He undid his button fly.

As soon as Simon had torn Kieren’s clothes from his body, ignoring the knocks on the door, he removed his own, wasn’t as clumsy with them, systematic. Kicked his pants off, tugged his shirt over his head. Before Kieren could speak Simon spread his legs. He barely spat on his fingers before inserting one without warning. Kieren must’ve been paying attention because he gasped. Simon didn’t know if he could feel it or not, but his length throbbed just looking at him. He tried to ignore the contradictions, the questions. He moved his finger inside him, and the muscles just barely tightened, so he inserted another. Only once he’d inserted three did he think that was enough.

“I want to touch you Kieren… properly,” He whispered, and he liked the way Kieren’s name sounded on his own tongue. “Can I?” He asked. He asked it like when Kieren left him, he wouldn’t be taking a crisp hundred pound note with him.

If Kieren’s thoughts were anything along the same lines he didn’t show it. He only nodded, swallowed hard and god was he beautiful, he was so beautiful. Even now, as Simon knew he was pretending, that he didn’t want him, really. He dived down, kissed him again as he tore open the condom, he wasn’t going to risk it, he wasn’t going to pretend he was Kieren’s first, as much as he wished he was. He ran his fingers over himself, took a shuddering breath as he rolled it on, eyes never leaving Kieren’s. The boy cocked his head as if to say ‘try me’ and Simon almost lost it right then and there.

He wasn’t gentle, he descended upon him; he pushed his legs apart and pushed in without waiting. In one long fluid movement he was inside him, and god it was something else. He was cold, and the muscles didn’t clench as tightly. But it was good, Christ, it was good. Simon felt sick with it, felt the head rush as he descended on the boy. Sick, with every kiss he trailed across his ice-cold skin. “Did I hurt you, darlin’?” He whispered. Kieren didn’t answer, just shook his head and squirmed beneath him. Simon’s breath hitched, and he ran his hands down his bare sides now.

Exquisite, he was fucking exquisite.

Simon thrust inside him again with a grunt. He settled his hands back on his thighs and held so tight that he’d leave finger bruises on anyone else. But Kieren’s cold skin didn’t pucker, didn’t clench and turn purple under him. They were still soft, his thighs, skinny, but soft in places. It made Simon push in harder. He was pounding him now, and Kieren’s slim figure swayed, was pushed back into the mattress. Maybe Simon was wrong to think he didn’t feel because he moaned long and loud, desperately, voice straining. He didn’t have a name to moan. Simon kept it that way, because he thought if he heard it carried from those petal soft lips he would lose control. Strangely it didn’t faze him that Kieren didn’t get hard. Maybe he just couldn’t.

He used Kieren like so many men had already. He slowed and wore him, buried his cock so deep inside him that what little Kieren could feel was confused with where he ended. He tried to close his eyes, be numb to it. He tried not to look at Simon because the reverence was wrong, was too much. But then the tingling vague sensation of warmth brushed over his cheek like the ghost of touch and Kieren peeked out from under his lashes.

“Don’t look away.”

* * *

 

Kieren sat up, the sheet was filthy and he felt like he matched it. Simon was laying on the half closest to the door, he was trapped against the wall. He felt the stiffness, the awkwardness of his movements. He might not have been able to feel it but once Simon was done with him, he had given it another valiant effort twice more and his dead muscles were clenched up uncomfortably. He escaped the tangled sheet Simon had pulled over him in some strange sense of obligation, or perhaps because he felt he should. He got to his feet and felt his thighs tremble to keep him up but he braced against the wall and climbed over the sleeping man. He didn’t touch him, he didn’t tousle the dark hair that was misplaced. A mess.

He found his underwear and stepped into it. Pulled the slim waistband up and managed to fight his way back into his jeans by dropping down onto the edge of the mattress. He managed to get the buttons done when he heard it rather than felt it. Simon had moved, his arm wrapped around the boys waist and his lips were on his shoulder blade, kiss up to the back of his neck. “S’another hundred if you want to go again,” Kieren said softly, his voice was removed, it wasn’t warm like it was before. That shook Simon to the core. The illusion was ended.

“Where can I find you again?” Simon asked as he struggled to extricate the notes to pay him. Kieren took them slipped them into the waist band of his underwear before he pulled the shirt on over his head.

Kieren turned his fair head. “Here… we don’t go far, if we move, you’ll know about it.” That ominous ‘we’ played on Simon’s mind as he chewed his lip.

“Never done this before…” He admitted, mumbling as he watched Kieren rise to his feet, step back into the heavy boots he’d been wearing. He looked back over his shoulder at the other and Simon’s heart broke just looking at him; this gorgeous boy.

“Fucked a pds, or paid for it?” Kieren asked, and Simon was so shocked to hear something so brash come from that pretty mouth he didn’t say another word as Kieren left.

__God have mercy._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was a purely self indulgent fic, I'm planning for it to be multi-chapter if anyone else is as self-indulgent as I am and want more. (have the second chapter written, just holding off to tweak it)  
> Sorry about the smut cut off but the chapter was getting very long, promise I have no problem writing the stuff, and will continue to do so throughout, if I write more.  
> Self beta'd! So be kind.  
> Summary from chapter 2.


	2. Take My Hunger

The come down was unbearable. Simon should be numb to it now, he should know what it feels like when the drug burns out and he’s left empty. He should be used to the swell in his head and the shift, his centre of gravity constantly moving, the harshness of the dimmest light, the scream of the quietest voice. It still leaves him blurred and disoriented. Everything was vague, just out of focus, just out of vision. His fingers spread on the cold cotton, he felt like it should be filled, that the empty space needed to be filled. He cracked his eyes open and there was no glint of pearlescent flesh, no copper hair. He remembered him in flashes: Kieren under the lights and Kieren under his body and Kieren walking through the door. He managed to knock his clock off the bedside table in an attempt to snatch at it, to make sense of the time. He could barely see the stream of light piercing the curtain’s gap, casting a slither of floor in shades of red and white. He managed to sit up, to press the heels of his palms into his eyes. This was the hardest part. Always the hardest part.

He rolled his shoulders, breathed a sigh that rattled in his lungs. The splitting head was enough, the pin prick tracks on his arm were extra, and the memories of his frozen lips were too much. He tried to recollect him just exactly, spread his hands palm up on his knees and closed his eyes like he could sense the weight of him again. He’d turned so cold, like his skin, when he’d left. Simon had made a terrible mistake ever letting him into his bed, into his heart like he was sixteen again and not thirty and not a man that should be able to say ‘no’ and think ‘no’ because wanting wasn’t enough validation. Because then this happened.  He had been so small, he fit in Simon’s arms so easy, and his face- screwed up in feigned ecstasy that Simon knew he didn’t mean but he’d loved all the same. He’d loved, and loved.  How old was he? Simon tried to reason he was dead, that he would be perpetual young and stunning but that wasn’t enough. That didn’t justify the means, no ends ever could. He stood slowly dragged the curtains across the window and was blinded in the sharp light refracted through the dirty window, like some kind of self-sacrifice, like a torture, punishment.

But oh, he loved him, still.

He showered cold. He couldn’t afford thoughts like these. He fell into yesterday’s clothes and found he didn’t care how rumpled they were, he held the jumper suspended before he pulled it down over his head, he turned his head in the neck and it carried that electric scent of whatever cheap scent Kieren had drenched his dead skin in. He marvelled in it. He breathed it in every time he adjusted the sweater and it was intoxicating and it made him feel sick again just thinking of _him._ He dragged it off like where it touched his skin it burned, tugged another on that smelled of moth balls and the dankness of the very backs of his wardrobe. He let the other jumper live on the floor. He entered the hallway and made himself small, tried to be quiet in his break for the stairs.

“When did you come back?” His father’s voice was rough as nails, made Simon’s spine shiver, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand. He turned.

“Came back in late last night, dad, y’didn’t hear me?” He answered, a question to a question. He didn’t presume anything. He didn’t even received an answer, just a stiff shake of the head. “Came back in around three,” Simon licked his lips. His father seemed satisfied with that answer, disappeared back into their- his room. His room alone, now. Paused in the doorway to glance at him, and Simon could feel the wrath of god in that look.

“Dad-“

“Get goin’, son,” -The weight of that word, ‘son’- “got an appointment today don’t yer? It’s Thursday.” The man bristled, before he slammed the door shut on Simon. He didn’t need telling twice.

It wouldn’t be the first time he sat in the sterilized white office with blood-shot eyes and skin pasty. He’d be sweating soon enough. All part of the ride, the end of the line. He was so used to it that it no longer fazed him. He spent too long breezing through. The man’s knee began to shake, restless, waiting. The appointments were conditional –and by conditional that meant his father would scowl at the sight of him until he came back with some results. He had tried to explain that there was no cure for sadness, but he proved that wrong every time, with each and every body his hands settled on. America had romanticised love for him early, his father had criminalized the love of a man like the love of a woman earlier still. But a combination of the two ideas had resulted in the constant chasing. Simon had chosen Kieren last night; that was that.

His doctor seemed to have more frequent patients after the graves opened and the risen crawled free. Psychiatry did come with the complete medical training, with so many dead in the fallout of the rising Simon could only assume the Lancashire medical board stopped being picky with who they lumped PDS patients with. An influx of peach and grey skin had begun filtering into this office for as long as Simon had been going. Blackburn was lucky enough to have a small undead population, comparatively, didn’t know about the towns closer. His own Doctor wasn’t local, did the trip up every Thursday, and so Simon’s appointments were always on Thursday’s.

“Simon Monroe?” The receptionist called, she was pretty; she had a swath of golden hair piled on the top of her head like a cyclone had blown through it. But it suited her. Her lips were ruby red, and not for the first time Simon noted his complete lack of attraction toward her. She smiled and he smiled back but felt nothing, she directed him toward the room his doctor had taken up and he forgot her as soon as she was out of his sight.

He entered the rectangular room and saw Doctor Russo, he didn’t take up much of the room, but the warmth of his expression dominated even the heavy, peeling wooden desk. The space was bare of the usual anatomical nick-knacks. “Hey, Doctor Russo,” Simon said reluctantly, he didn’t trust Doctors, he didn’t trust anyone much. Regardless he took a seat.

“Hello Simon, how are we feeling today? You don’t look very well, rough night’s sleep?” He tested, and Simon was well aware when their eyes met they both knew it had nothing to do with sleep, or lack-there-of.

“Somethin’ like that,” The Irishmen answered, turning his head slightly. He was unreadable, had that same faraway look that left the Doctor’s heavy gaze somewhat harsher than need be. He was a hard patient to read, that was a problem.

“Alright Simon, well, what have I missed? Tell me everything, it’s been almost two weeks since we saw each other,” Doctor Russo said, stretching out, leaning back with a creak of his chair. “Sorry about that, by the way, the rabble in Roarton stirred up recently, some sort of ULA scare. I’m sure you saw.”

Simon didn’t see. He lived a fairly sheltered existence, the ULA and the PDS and anything vaguely undead remained undisclosed in his house. The news was never on for more than a second before his father flicked the channel.

“Yeah, nasty stuff.” He answered simply. Doctor Russo didn’t seem convinced. Simon paused for a moment before he said.

“You know a lot about that stuff, then, the PDS,” He ventured. The doctor’s expression shifted, curiosity peaked.

“Generally, since the rising all doctors were required to complete a basic course, so- yes. Why? Interested in becoming a doctor, Simon?” The man half chuckled, and Simon didn’t like the sound of it. It was too friendly.

“No, don’t have the patience or the time.”

“I digress,” Doctor Russo interrupted, a smile twisting his lips. But he didn’t speak another word after. Simon would’ve judged him on the pretentiousness of the statement, stand alone, if he hadn’t been known to utter those words, in this office, too.

“The reason I wanted to know,” Simon started again, eyes carefully averted for a moment, focusing on the peeling stain on the timber. “I met someone, a… partially deceased syndrome sufferer, the other night.” Simon left that very open, but he could already feel the judgement in his gaze.

“Simon, we’ve talked about this… you’re erratic, you’re not thinking things through,” Doctor Russo said, the dark haired man shifted in his seat. The vague itch beneath the fine knit sleeves of his green sweater peeked and Simon had to stop himself from letting his fingers dive under to bite at the tracks.

“It’s not the same as last time.” The man assured, his soft blue pools darting away for a moment before they came back to rest on the others dark ones. He stared him down, as if daring the man to question.

“You said that last time,” He reprimanded, and Simon felt condemned. This was going to be what saved him, Simon could feel it – this boy, this ethereal creature; it was real this time.

“Kieren’s different.”

“Kieren?” Doctor Russo sounded shocked, there was a flickering of dawning comprehension before Simon continued.

“He’s not like the others were, he’s – Incredible.” For a moment Simon was lost in his own revelry, the recollection of Kieren reinforcing itself all the more strongly. He could already feel his cool lips, and it was before the thought of going back to him ever occurred. But he could do it.

“Simon… the prospect of a human-pds relationship…well I don’t mean to suggest anything by this but it’s a bit,” He stopped to fish around for the word.

“Unheard of?” Simon supplied, like he was testing the waters. Baby steps.

“Taboo,” Doctor Russo corrected. Simon felt that vague sinking sensation in the back of his chest again, but he didn’t say another word. His posture fell somewhat more. Doctor Russo seemed to pity him.

“Perhaps its best you don’t… er, explore that any further, for your own safety, I think at this point we can both openly speak of your tendencies for attachment.” He began again, but Simon was already long gone, Simon’s mind, clearer now after the heroin had burnt out and the hang over subsided was lamenting again already. He was already jonesing, counting the minutes to the next fix. The sweating had begun. He tried to remember how much money he’d blown on it the night before. More than what Kieren had cost him, and it hadn’t been enough, just enough for the one. He shifted.

“Simon… are you listening to me?” Doctor Russo tested, but Simon stood, wincing at the harsh grate of his chair against the floor.

“Think this sessions over for the day, thanks for this.” Simon sputtered, the first words that came to mind for him to say before he turned. He was ferretting his wallet out of his pocket in seconds, counted the crumpled bills he had left in it. All his money turned into an injection in his arm these days, his father was reluctant to give him loans despite the money left for Simon in his mother’s will. He never got a pound of it, his father withheld every piece, with good reason.

He didn’t have enough to pay his debts without expecting a hot shot in the next dose. But he did have enough for something else. He had enough for _him_.

 

* * *

 

Simon’s fingers were feverish, pushed through his hair, trying to make some sense of it, trying to stop it from being such a mess but it was so regardless. He suddenly wished he didn’t wear yesterday’s clothes, was glad he changed his jumper in the very least. He knocked twice on the door and was nearly shocked it didn’t fall down. Maybe they were gone, maybe he’d been made a fool of, Kieren didn’t want to see him again, and he’d lied to him. It had been a raw thirty seconds since Simon’s hand had wrapped the wood and already he considered turning his back on it. But the moment he stepped back as if to do so, the door groaned, made a sharp sound on the hinges and yielded. A shot mousy woman with cropped hair and startlingly grey skin stood on the other side. She was corseted and Simon didn’t know what to do with himself for a moment, mouth opened, closed, opened again, she frowned.

“Kieren- I want to see Kieren.” Simon said, and he hoped that was the boy’s name, too, that it hadn’t all been a lie. She seemed to recognize the name as soon as he spoke it though, stood back.

“He’s very popular today.” She said, and her accent wasn’t like anyone else’s he’d heard, she clearly wasn’t from Lancashire at all. She must’ve been from the south. Simon tried not to be unsettled by her words, ‘very popular’ could only mean one thing and Simon’s body jarred thinking about it. Thinking about last night, with anybody else laying by the boy’s side, doing what he’d done. The feeling could only be described as guilt. He followed her through the dark lounge, past the broken bead curtains into the hall opening. Simon swallowed hard. She stopped in front of a door, the same one that Simon had been behind just the night before. A smirk took her lips and Simon felt sick, the look she gave him.

“You’re welcome to wait,” She said, before she turned on her high heel and strutted off, not a single click underfoot, muffled by the carpet. Simon wrung his hands, this had been a mistake, the smart thing to do would be turn his back now. He could leave before anything happened. He turned his head away when he heard it. It echoed through the walls, came through the door but it was unmistakably him. Kieren, moaning. It was the same moan he’d heard the night before, when he’d been spread beneath Simon’s merciless touch. Something rooted Simon to the spot as he listened. He didn’t mean to, he didn’t. Another moan, the sound of mattress springs. Everything was faint and barely heard but Simon was so close to the door now, when had he gotten so close?

It made him angry. It made him so angry. Not just because someone else dared to touch him, no that wasn’t all it. But because Kieren had to do this, that he was lying flat on his back- or maybe not, however he had to be to take it. He wanted to burst through and knock whoever it was flying, he wanted to beat his fists against the door as people had done to him the night before. But he didn’t he remained rigid, eyes tense, brow drawn. The sounds stopped, Kieren’s moans ceased with a singular sound from someone other.  Simon stayed in place, only when he heard movement did he shift, took a step backward. When the door opened the man hadn’t even done his belt up, he was older than Simon and immediately Simon felt a pulse of white hot rage. There were flecks of grey in the man’s brown hair and Simon only stopped himself when he peered into the room and saw that slender back. The bony shoulders and the soft dips of his vertebrate that barely dented his skin. Kieren was swimming in the same sheets as last night and Simon felt sick again, but god wasn’t he flawless. An angel.

He suddenly felt like he was watching something very private, despite all he’d seen yesterday. He stood back, stood out of view and waited by the door. He heard the movements but didn’t see them. When Kieren appeared in the doorway, as if to close it and saw him and expression of displeasure briefly showed before something coy took its place. It concerned Simon more now than it had yesterday. He blamed the heroin, the loneliness, he blamed his father. He blamed himself last,   because he still wanted more.

“Who was that?” Simon asked, he sounded more jealous than he meant to be. Kieren made a slight face.

“Dunno, I call him what he tells me, he calls me what he wants, I get paid and he leaves.” Kieren answered simply. Simon licked his lips.

“I don’t like it,” he said, before he could stop himself. The incredulity was palpable.

“That’s too bad, isn’t it?” Kieren said, and the warmth in his tone was dissipated again, he wasn’t playing any games with him. And why should he? Simon hadn’t even paid him yet. That made the man shudder to think.  

“I didn’t- Kieren I didn’t mean it like that.” Simon stammered out quickly and the boy took a pitiful glance at him before he turned and walked back into the room, but he left the door open so Simon assumed he was allowed to come inside. He stepped back over the threshold and Kieren spoke three soft words.

“Close the door.” And it was in that voice again, the soft tone he used last night, when he’d told him his name and spoken in his ear in the spinning sea of party-goers. It occurred to Simon then how little he’d said, how few words he’d spoken before Simon had gladly used him. His fingers twitched, and he did it. He shut the door, and Kieren’s fingers brushed the fabric of his own shirt, back to Simon before he turned, and he began to lift it, to take it off, but Simon stepped forward and stopped him, covered his hands.

“No- Kieren no not now. Keep it on.” He said, and the echo of those same words, in this same room gave him chills. Kieren stopped, let the fabric fall. If ever there were bedroom eyes, they belonged to Kieren, he’d perfected it, like a fine art.

“Do I disgust you that much? That why you keep asking me to leave it on?” He asked, he didn’t sound like it hurt him. And that crumbled Simon.

“No, no…quite the opposite,” Simon was snickering, breathless. “Kieren you’re amazing…” He didn’t know why; he felt like he was talking down a wounded animal. Christ look at him, he was even younger in the vague light of day steaming through the wood planks on the window. Simon raised his hands to caress his cheek. Once more, he told himself. It couldn’t hurt.

“Leave your money on the night stand.” Kieren murmured, drawing away from his touch, peeling the shirt off over his head. The thud the leather made on wood when Simon put his wallet down was heavy with guilt. Another sin, just once more.

It was just another addiction, he knew that. They all were. But there was something about Kieren’s porcelain skin that made Simon’s hands tremble to touch. He pressed his palms into his sides like he could erase the touch of every other man, like he could erase the fingerprints they’d left on Kieren’s body as unwittingly as Simon had done. He didn’t kiss his mouth, he didn’t deserve too. He could leave all the money his mother had left him on the night stand and still not have earned it.

He took his time to look now as he didn’t last night, as the clarity of sobriety allowed him to. He noticed more veins this time, not just on his face but running down his neck like bolts of lightning. Some on his chest, and he ducked his head to kiss them, one finger trailing the sharp ledge of a collar bone. He wondered how much extra it would cost to worship him properly. He paused at just the thought. This wasn’t the worst thing he’d done, he tried to reason, pay a beautiful boy for his love, but when he tilted his head and looked into his jilted young eyes. He couldn’t help the awe, looking at him, the lost work of Michelangelo, surely. Simon had the brain of a failed poet, and he strung stanzas on Kieren’s neck, caressed his spine, thoughts in iambic pentameter more clearly than any poem he wrote when he rested his hands in the cradle of his bony spine’s dip. He hesitated, but how was he supposed to stop?

“Kieren…” He breathed the word like it was a prayer, and as a Christian he should hate himself for it.

Simon’s fingers hooked Kieren’s pants and dragged them down, he didn’t undo the fly, and found he didn’t need to, they fell, and Kieren stepped clumsily out of them. There was no grace in the moment, and it shocked Simon. He’d walked oddly, but he’d been nothing but flawless just the night before, he’d not made a jerky movement. It was an act, Simon was just another client and Kieren had put on the show for him just the same. But that wasn’t here now. He looked at his trembling, near knocking knees, and when he looked up and met Kieren’s gaze the boy looked frightened. It was gone as soon as it had appeared, the vulnerability in him. He hid it away. But Simon never forgot it. 

He took the underwear next, he tugged it from his body and again; Kieren was soft. His gaze raised for a moment, as if asking why, he didn't know enough, but the answer seemed and was obvious when Kieren spoke. "No blood flow, s'all part of the appeal." He was speaking low, but there wasn't anything sultry about it and it made Simon's heart soar, thud hard against his rib cage. He practically fell in love with him again, this version of Kieren, he wanted to see all of them. The beautiful, and the vulnerable. He wanted to see his vanity and his anger, he wanted to know what was behind this.

He ran his hands up and down his sides, "My names Simon," He said quietly, properly introducing himself for the first time, "I wondered if you could- now that you know it, if you could..."

"Yer barely touching me, why not find out, Simon?" Kieren teased, and the way he said his name broke the man squarely in half. He fell to pieces in his hands. Simon didn't guide him toward the mattress, not this time, not after he'd laid loves down there all day, an unknowable amount of paid out, rich men no doubt. He took Kieren's hips and he spun him, pushed him toward the wall. Kieren hit it with a soft thud and a groan. His delicate spindly fingers stretched, palms spread on the chipped grey paint, and Simon nudged his thighs apart, caressed him. He was agile and long and Simon needed him. He only had to bite Kieren's shoulder and draw out the first moaned "Simon" to be hard. He shucked his pants down, let them pool at his knees, shift toward his ankles. Kieren's fingers curled against the painted planks, nails scratching.  Simon didn't even bother to peal off his sweater when he put the condom on -had just seen proof Kieren was fucked more than once- lined up, and pushed into him. He could've never done it had Kieren been alive. He loved that, and feared it all the same. He was already so loose and it should've made Simon furious but the feeling of being buried inside him again outweighed that. 

"Fuck," He groaned, jerked up into him again, his cock near aching as he made to pushharder, trying to get some friction because Kieren's insides were devoid of heat. Kieren's front rocked against the water stained surface and rose an inch with every thrust. Kieren let his head fall back, so Simon picked up the pace, dropped his head to Kieren's neck to bite, to nip and suck at his cold skin and leave a mark that would never appear. Invisible like he meant nothing. "Fuck, Kieren..." He said again, bucking up into him. "You're perfect, y'know that? Christ look at you.. writhin'," Simon couldn't' stop himself, he had to tell him. He had to know. "Perfect..." He worked out, kissed around the gaping hole in the back of his neck. Taboo, was it? Then call Simon cursed, because he couldn't stop.

He didn't last as long as he'd have liked, drew out and slammed back into him, making Kieren's body sway into his knit covered chest, shoulders brushing Simon's front. The older's pants pooled at his ankles now like he was some love starved teenager taking him quick for the first time. He was blowing the last of his money on this, he should make it good. That thought disgusted him. He disgusted himself. But Kieren distracted him, beautiful Kieren. He finished because Kieren moaned his name, long and loud. Loud enough to echo down the hall, "Simon- oh.. there." He said, like there was a 'there' that felt him. And Simon came undone. He came hard, shook and shivered and pounded Kieren for dear life to try and ride it out. Until it was over. And he was left with aftershocks, his hand fell over Kieren's on the wall and balled around it, held it as he stood, still nestled deep inside him. He rested his sweaty head on Kieren's shoulder. Murmured, "Kieren... look at me." Kieren was trembling, ever so lightly, almost unnoticed. He barely turned his head, looked at Simon with parted lips and heavy lids. His anomaly. His phenomenon. Never really his. Simon stood unsteady, flaccid now, still holding onto some hope he could take him again. But as the seconds wore on he knew it was over. He pulled out, dragged his protection off and unceremoniously tucked himself away. Like he'd just done something terrible and was going to make off now. And he had. He was wretched. 

Kieren stayed pressed against the wall for a long moment, legs parted. 

"I had no intention of doing this..." Simon said, suddenly, he didn't mean to.

"But you did." Kieren answered, and when he grabbed for his pants it was jerky, and Simon was certain he'd done something very wrong. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, so here’s chapter two! Longer chapter; longer end note. I don’t expect anyone to read all of this.
> 
> Thanks for the kudos/bookmarks/reviews, it really encouraged me to get another chapter together. Very Simon-centric, I’m going to be honest… I don’t write a lot of Simon. I normally write Kieren the most, but this just sort of happened, I felt like I needed to give a few hints out in this one. (I did some research for it and everything, so should be vaguely accurate) I feel like this is the chapter where everyone will stop reading I’m not 100% happy with it but the show must go on. I spent most of the day writing this while I still had steam. Next chapter will probably be Kieren-centric. 
> 
> To everyone dying to know what happened to Kieren, how he got there, I’m sorry this chapter didn’t answer those questions! But there will be one that does. Promise I won’t keep you all in the dark too long.
> 
> I promise I wont leave the next update long! (I hope no one saw me randomly change the ending I realised I put it in too soon oops had the wrong page of my plan open.)


	3. Please Don’t Need It

Kieren woke with a scream strangling his throat, but he didn’t make a single sound, his lips were so tightly pressed together not a single sound could escape. He drew in a hard breath through his nose that made no difference. There was absolute silence for a moment and in the blackness Kieren thought he’d woken there again, his coffin; trapped by cedar and dirt under turned soil. He was too scared to raise his fingers to find out. Soon the sounds filtered through to him, the thrashing of bodies and the thud of music. He laid very still, let the tense set his shoulders assumed burn out. It didn’t scare him as much as it used to; he had found new terrors to scare him. It was impossible for him to tell what time it must be with the curtains drawn as they were. He grappled at the wall in an attempt to pull to his feet. His raw knuckles pressed into it as he steadied precariously on the mattress. He stepped over him, whoever he was that had thrown money at him and dragged him into the room by the wrist. He snatched the crumpled notes up and slipped awkwardly back into his clothes, hated the way the fabric became a second skin, fit where it touched. He cast a second glance over his shoulder at the sleeping man. He hadn’t known what his name was, he rarely did.

He did his fly up with unsteady fingers, felt the shiver when he heard it behind him, the movement, consciousness. His body tensed, and he closed his eyes. _Please_ , he thought, _no more._

The stirring ceased, and the man with the bruising touch and the unforgiving words settled again. Kieren’s breath caught in his throat until he was in the hallway far from him. He wouldn’t come back, Kieren could tell; he didn’t like him, he didn’t fight back enough. That thought made him dizzy as he stumbled down the hall, feet bare, toward the dilapidated kitchen. He braced himself on the rims of the chipped porcelain sink. Shallow, in and out, soft rises of his spine. He didn’t need to breathe, it didn’t do anything for him. It felt like he was trying to bring oxygen into a lungful of water. At first, the sensation had been like drowning from the inside out, to Kieren. He wasn’t used to it, he never would be used to it. He fumbled in the cupboards, careful not to pull the door completely off its hinges, he scratched a cigarette out of a crumpled carton. Starred at the thing, tapped it against the side of the sink before he dropped it. It didn’t make difference if he smoked or not, it couldn’t hurt him, he couldn’t taste the smoke on his tongue, it wouldn’t calm his raw nerves. He stood bent over the bench until a voice fractured his thoughts enough to make him jump.

“Kieren, you alright love?” It was one of the girls, people called her ‘Violet’ but Kieren wasn’t sure what her real name was. He’d never picked a make-believe name, nothing seemed to fit him. She was stocky and corseted and her hair was bleach blonde. Kieren thought she was very pretty, and only lamented her being stuck here all the more. No pity left for himself.

“Yeah, last bloke was just shit, not as good as he thought he was, I don’t think,” He teased with a liar’s grin on his terrified lips. She didn’t notice. In fact Violet laughed, clapped a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

“Aren’t they all though?” She said, and she sounded strange framing her sentences that way, her accent wasn’t local but she’d picked the tongue up easily enough. The two of them swayed in comfortable silence for a moment, Kieren’s long arms crossed as he leant back against the bench, Violets hands on her hips beside him.

“Oh!” She said suddenly, startling upright on her heeled feet, Kieren’s own were still painfully bare, unfeeling on the cracked tile floor.  The younger raised his brow expectantly at her little outburst. “I was supposed to find you, somebody asked for you.”

Kieren’s heart sunk, that sounded unpleasant. For a moment he pictured Simon again and he nearly told Violet to tell him to stick it. He’d been here barely six hours ago, surely he wasn’t so frustrated he needed to come back for a second round he didn’t mean. And Kieren didn’t want to anyway, he’d had quite enough of them all. The boys gut turned in discomfort thinking about him, he was strange, more so than his clients tended to be. It took a certain measure of oddity to be attracted to what Kieren could offer. The first time hadn’t struck Kieren as unusual, it was when he came back again, the mixed signals and the gentleness and then he’d boxed him in like he was no different. Kieren couldn’t make sense of it, and he didn’t like it. The unpredictable clients were always the dangerous ones. What the fuck was that even supposed to mean, he ‘had no intention’ of doing it? What did he come for, cuddle and a chat? His voice rung through his mind clear as a bell. It drowned out the ugly words his last client had breathed into him before pushed his face into the mattress.

He sighed, “Dunno who he is I s’pose?” Kieren asked her. The woman looked sorry when she shook her wavy locks. He would have to start asking for names before he accepted, even pseudo-names. Something told him Simon wouldn’t lie about it after he’d gone to the trouble of introducing himself. Maybe he could cut him off entirely. “After this weekend….” He started, standing up straight, trying to swallow some false enthusiasm, “I’m swearing off men.” He finished, joked emptily, and Violet laughed. None the wiser.

Kieren was gearing up his ‘no’ he could already feel it bubbling up his throat, for a start his room was currently occupied and Kieren didn’t dare the man taking up his bed space. He weaved through the small waiting crowd in the corridors, not a glance spared for him which only seemed to lull him into a false sense of security. He paused among the few that crowded at the mouth of the corridor as if looking for him. He hoped he wouldn’t see it, that dark dishevelled hair and an ugly sweater and those blue far-away-eyes. He didn’t. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or not as he broke free and entered the lounge. The music swayed and Kieren didn’t, he crossed the floor someone touched his shoulder and he didn’t turn. He ducked the long-long looks and avoided stray hands. He was so close, didn’t see anyone he well knew, and the door was ajar, the sun was up so it must be day time, he was so close.  

And then the arms closed around him like chains, he felt the weight press against his back, breath like a soft breeze on his neck. He turned his head away in displeasure, and lips landed, started to drop kisses, “Kieren,” He crooned, and despite what he’d thought there was no relief that the man’s voice didn’t come in an Irish drawl. He froze, hands drawn to his chest, unwilling to touch or to pull away. “I’ve missed you.” He said, and Kieren’s stomach dropped out. He wiggled slightly, and the arms tightened.

“Come off it, I’m not in the mood I’ve just finished up with someone else I haven’t got the room.” Kieren answered, trying to manouver free of the man’s touch.  He’d had him before, his name was never said when Kieren had asked, had a wife and three children, three estates and two apartments and he’d wanted to buy Kieren like a slave. He’d been good for the money, but it all went too far and Kieren couldn’t take it on his conscience. 

“That’s not what you said last time,” The man sounded as dangerous as he felt coiled like a viper around Kieren’s spindly frame. “Come on… we can do it here, remember how much you liked it? Don’t you miss me... all the beautiful things I got for you, don’t you want that again?” His hands shifted came to settle on his hips and Kieren squirmed. “I could get you anything Kieren… name your price, diamonds, silk sheets, tell me.” His voice was too calm, it didn’t betray what Kieren knew he was underneath the money and double breasted, fitted suits.

Kieren’s unnecessary breaths hitched. He pushed out, “I don’t want anything from you, I’ve said- I’m done, I don’t care what you can get me I don’t want it.” Kieren’s voice was panicked now, he was boxed in; he didn’t like that feeling when he had no control, not assurance. He kicked out, and the music pulsed and nobody saw them.

“I made you,” It was hissed, desperately trying to keep control of the writhing boy. “I fucking made you Kieren I had you when NOBODY wanted you, I sculpted you into what you are.” His nails bit into Kieren now, pulled at his clothes and Kieren decided he wasn’t having this. He’d had enough today, he’d had just about enough and he wasn’t going to lie on his back and let this man tell him who made who. He kicked harder this time, and he landed a hit because there was a harsh expel of air against his collar. The fingers settled in the netting of his shirt ripped and the fabric tore but Kieren didn’t care, he fought out of the hold like it strangled him.

“Who do you think you are?!” He growled as Kieren broke free of him, stumbling back. “You refuse me? You’re a whore, Kieren, people pay to fuck you. Think what you've got I can't get somewhere else? You’re not special, I could go a town over and give my money to some pretty big eyed cadaver who'll take it without a word.” He was angry, and Kieren recoiled from it, he was right, he knew that. But it was like a slap to the face, every word, twisted and mean and true. Kieren opened his mouth like he was going to argue, but he didn’t, he pushed the heavy door and it gave, groaned and blinded the boy with sun light. He regrouped against the hard surface, didn’t feel the cold concrete under his bare feet or the breeze touch his skin. It’d been so long since he’d left the decrepit place, since he’d left his room. His dead body didn’t need the sun, or feel it’s warmth, so what point was there? The music was muffled as soon as he let the door click shut on it. His clientele and the girls and those brushing hands and the man on his bed it was all muffled. Kieren breathed deeply, and his dead lungs struggled, before the air was let out again.

Kieren’s trembling hands raised and settled on his cheeks, kneaded his features. He wasn’t sure if he was hurt, or if he was numbed to it. Maybe he needed the wakeup call. He’d been called that before, but the harshness of it, it made him feel sick, and it made him feel dirty. Because he could do what he did and try turning the other cheek but everything fell on him eventually, the weight of it. He took a few wonky steps, then another, and another. Soon enough he was running, he had to put distance between that and this, he had to have just one fucking minute to breathe where he wasn’t swallowing exhales and ashes.

He was bare-faced, he hadn’t spared a thought to that until he started to get looks, glances. His torn clothes, bare feet, bare face. He must’ve looked like a pitiful thing, crawled out of a hole again. And they wouldn’t be wrong to think that. He stumbled as far down the path as he could manage before he lost the energy to carry himself any farther, he took shelter in a bus stop, dropped down on the metal bench and raised a hand to slap over his mouth before the sob could bubble up. He wrapped his other arm protectively around himself. People passed and looked their nose down at him and he struggled to bite back the dry sobs, because he couldn’t cry, his tear ducts had long since dried. Not for the first time Kieren missed them. It wasn’t as if he ever stopped, but when he wasn’t bent over and paid to take it, in quiet moments it struck him again that they were all at home together while he was here, doing sinful disgusting things, letting it be done to him.

It wouldn’t hurt so much if it weren’t for him; Simon. If he hadn’t tried to make out he was some kind of Jesus Christ and then gone and done the same as anyone else would, if he hadn’t twisted him up with words and wound him down with his reverent touches. Kieren hated him. He hated him. 

Minutes felt like hours there, he wondered if he’d be missed and then the words dug talons into him again, he was just a cold body. He heard footsteps but he ignored them, or he tried to. They passed by quickly enough, and soon it was as if word spread, and people avoided passing him entirely. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the concrete, didn’t try to meet milky gaze with any of the people that dared to gawk for even a second. He closes his eyes, rested his head against the dirty glass and counted back from ten this time, which was all he needed.

“Kieren?” This voice was soft, it wasn’t harsh, it didn’t sound like it wanted anything from him, it was concerned. It was Irish, it was low, it was Simon.

Kieren groaned, “That’s just right, you know what I’ve had enough rubbish today so if you’re looking for a quickie just get it somewhere else, I’m not the only person who takes money in exchange for a good hard fuck.”

The harshness of his words struck Simon, clearly, but Kieren didn’t care. Someone should strike him, he was done with men that thought they owned him because they paid.

“Kieren I would never-“

“Oh yeah? What do you call the past two nights then? You didn’t come over to cuddle.” Kieren snapped, and he thought he saw the slightest twinge of regret, of guilt cross Simon’s ever-brooding features.

“What are you doing out here?” He asked instead, like he was walking on egg shells, like he was going to fall through the ice if he didn’t measure his tone. And Kieren thought at this point he just might, after a beat of silence, Kieren sat up a bit.

“Had to get out, I’m not under house arrest you know.” Kieren answered, tapping his finger against his knee absently. He could feel Simon’s eyes on him, but they weren’t the same eyes, they weren’t the ‘undress me’ eyes, he was worried. Kieren didn’t know what to do with a look like that. He could take lust, he could take want and unbridled fake-love, but he couldn’t take concern.

“Somebody give you a hard time?” Simon sounded like he could turn somebody to dust with mere words, Kieren didn’t know that he liked it.

“Something like that, yeah.”

There was another beat of silence. And if Kieren didn’t know already he was well and truly dead, he’d have thought his heart beat with it.

“You need somewhere to cool off? I’ve got room… you could come for a couple hours, I’d walk you back.” Simon offered, sounding more hopeful than Kieren cared to acknowledge. He didn’t do house calls. It wasn't safe, so much unknown and left to the imagination, people got violent when there was too much perceived control. And who would miss him?

“I dunno… Simon I don’t really…” Kieren tried to refuse, but the expression of momentary desperation on Simon’s face screamed something to him. He was lonely. That made Kieren’s chest concave, all the men who laid him down were lonely, somehow, but not like that. Not cripplingly so.

“It’d just be to talk… I’ll pay you for yer time, if that’s what yer worried about,” Simon was already digging his wallet out of his pocket and Kieren found something so awful and pathetic about it he stood and stopped his movements.

“I’m not that desperate Jesus, put it away.” He answered, smaller hand settles on Simon’s, they met eyes for a moment and Kieren recognized a brokenness reflected in them that wasn’t Simon’s for the first time. Simon was hesitant, but he did as he was told, he relinquished, he tucked his wallet away again. He didn’t have much in it as it was, he was on his last few crumpled bills.

“Come on then, let’s go, I haven’t got all day. Pretty busy night ahead of me, probably.” Kieren said, and the warmth that blossomed across Simon’s face for it unnerved him. Nobody should look at him like that, especially not knowing what he’d done. Simon shifted the heavy coat off his shoulders, and despite the fact Kieren drew away he draped it around him.

“Shirts ripped.” He muttered, in answer to Kieren’s disbelieving look. He jerked his head over his shoulder and Kieren tugged the thing off, thrust it back at him, a wordless ‘thanks but no thanks’ was exchanged in looks, and Simon wondered where Kieren got all that pride from. Not that he minded it.

They walked bumping shoulders for twenty five minutes, and Kieren was slightly unnerved by how close Simon’s house was to the brothel, there was no other word for it; it was a brothel. Kieren wasn’t going to pretend it was anything else after what he’d heard today. Simon swung the keys on his finger, the ring wrapped around his index. Kieren’s bare feet made soft sounds padding along beside him until he reached the gate. He hesitated there, took in the house, it was two story, modest, the garden looked like it’d been let go a bit, and Kieren felt a shiver looking at it. There was something just not right. There were two pair of rain boots by the door when he reached it, and though Simon didn’t say anything it didn’t need to be said that he should be quiet.

Kieren wiped his feet on the door mat vigorously before he crossed the threshold. The first thing he took notice of was the dust, the thin film of it on the front of picture frames, a woman’s coat hung in the hall it too was covered in a thin film of dust, completely untouched. Kieren felt like he was intruding on something very sacred for a moment, drew his hands close to his body before Simon took one. He held it like Kieren was a delicate mix of porcelain and glass, and it was too gentle to comfort him. He could handle rough, he could handle snatching, none of this.

“This way,” Simon said lowly, glancing over his shoulder at Kieren as he dragged him upstairs. Kieren listened, the tv was on, but he saw no one in the lounge, the house seemed empty, aside from the two of them. He followed up the staircase, and counted distinctly, three rooms. There must be at least one other person. But all was silent other than the weather forecast being presented downstairs drifting up to him. Simon chose a door and pulled him through it. Kieren was shocked by the room he found himself in. It was untidy but it bore the distinct mementoes of a child-gone-adolescent. Simon was well past both stages now. And still, the walls were bedecked with racing car caricatures and music posters. It wasn’t very different from his own room at home.

“The Smiths,” Kieren said, with no real conviction in his tone, pointing at one of the posters in particular. Simon seemed not to know what he meant for a moment before he raised a brow, looked at it and said:

“Don’t like them?” Very carefully.

“I do, actually, not really hard-core enough for me but sometimes you’ve got to give your ears a rest.” Kieren managed something of a grin and a soft chuckle escaped Simon’s lips.

“Metal fan are you? I wouldn’tve guessed,” He sat down on the edge of his bed, at least smoothed it so it was half made,

“The things you couldn’t guess about me Simon, would fill a book,” Kieren answered, looking over his shoulder as his fingers brushed the spines of the poetry collections Simon had on his shelves. There were cds too, and Kieren decided he didn’t have terrible taste in either. “Fancy yourself a poet?” He piped up, and the whole thing was easy. It felt too easy, too casual.

“I gave it a shot, did a major in creative writing,” Simon pointed it out on the wall and Kieren’s eyes followed his hands, he read the diploma, framed on the wall. It was dated for three years ago.

“Always funny to see where people were before the rising, spose that’s why you quit then? Hard to get a degree when the zombie apocalypse strikes.” Kieren said, but Simon didn’t answer, and when he turned his head he was right behind him, so close Kieren could feel him- or sense him. He saw him out of the corner of his eye, and where his hand rested on the spine of one of the novels Simon’s mirrored it, caught his own and closed around it.

“What about you then, where were you before the rising?” He was prying, Kieren didn’t like it, he turned his head back to look at the frame but he could see Simon reflected in the glass in the false-light. He could see his heavy gaze transfixed on him.

“I was in the ground, dead,” He answered. Simon’s fingers twitched around his own.

“And before that?” He asked, moving closer to him. Kieren felt that trapped sensation again. But he didn’t kick out this time. Just to talk, so much for that.

“Before that I was at school.” Kieren answered again, and the lacking details seemed to frustrate Simon somewhat, he looked over Kieren’s shoulder, his chest flush with the boy’s bony shoulders again.

“Bachelors?” Simon said hopefully, Kieren’s lips turned up at the corners, he felt like he had the higher ground now, he felt some sick pleasure in his stomach as he turned to face him, chest to chest now, looking up the few inches Simon had on him.

“GCSE, actually.” And Kieren revelled in the horror on Simon’s face. He wanted him to feel bad, he wanted Simon to feel sick with it like Kieren had been made to the past two nights after he confused his head and heart before he took off with sour words.

“Christ,” Simon breathed, and despite the horror still Kieren saw it, the need, and the admiration. Unburdened by the knowledge, he still looked at Kieren like he hung the moon. “What did you in then, must’ve been healthy enough.”

Kieren made a thoughtful sound before he says, “Long story, you’d get bored.” That made the confidence on Simon’s face flicker and Kieren felt another twisted pleasure in it. Simon clearly wasn’t used to being challenged like this. People obviously just gave in to him. Kieren didn’t.

“Alright, won’t answer those, tell me somethin’ else then, how’d you end up here?”

“Took a bus.” Kieren answered, and then Simon really cracked.

“Kieren.” He said, warningly, and the boy only blinked up at him, golden lashes aflutter with every damn blink. Simon’s heart lurched, and Kieren knew, and Simon hated this. He hated that he wasn’t in control, he hated that Kieren could do this. Kieren knew it too.

“You want to know why I’m selling my corpse for a few pounds, that it? What gives you the right to even ask?” Kieren settled his hands on Simon’s upper arms, intending to push him away, but something froze him. The anger, and the desperation mingled with curiosity, astonishment and something Kieren couldn’t name on Simon’s face.

“I don’t, I’ve got no right to ask,” Simon answered after a thoughtful moment. But that was all he said, and the silence got to Kieren. He raised a hand and brushed it over Kieren’s cheek, despite the delicate outline of his body Kieren’s face still held some of that youthful softness. Simon’s thumb brushed over his bottom lip as Kieren parted them to breathe. He wouldn’t meet his gaze, he wouldn’t give him that satisfaction, but Simon’s other hand caught his chin raised his head.

“It’s alright, we all have our scars.” His voice was so sickly sweet, so fucking soft that Kieren thought he would keel over just listening. Simon smiled, and Kieren’s dead heart would’ve thumped for it. He didn’t like this. He barely shifted, a grimace on his lips. “It’s alright Kieren,” Simon near crooned and Kieren knew then that it wasn’t. None of this was alright, the fucking and the money and the touching. He shouldn’t’ve run to begin with, now he was trapped here.

“It’s not alright,” Kieren managed, playing into Simon’s hands like he wanted him to. His tongue darted out to dampen his dry lips, in theory, and Simon studied the movement like he was trying to unravel him, predict his movements. Kieren couldn’t manage the way he looked at him, so he did it, he dove forward and he kissed him, he imagined Simon’s lips were warm and tasted like cigarette smoke and Irish whiskey. He imagined that those long looks Simon gave him meant something, meant anything. He sensed more than he felt Simon’s fingers dive beneath the torn material of his shirt, and when he pulled it over his head it felt liberating. Kieren was bare an unashamed for a few brief moments under the reverent look Simon’s eyes appraised him with, before he ducked his dark head to kiss his collar bone.

“Tell me what’s not alright.” Simon murmured as he tucked his arms around Kieren, cradling him in his hold as he washed his skin in butterfly kisses. Kieren hesitated.

“This- all of this… it’s- shit.” Kieren huffed out, a lost laugh following, and Simon snickered at him, dropped to his knees and moved his kisses to his stomach. Kieren’s fingers automatically pushed into his hair, eliciting a soft sound from the older. Kieren was on automatic, he couldn’t feel a single kiss, he couldn’t feel the texture of his lips, but he felt a strange pressure.

“Go on.” Simon said, as his fingers raised to unbutton his jeans, his bright blue eyes determinedly fixed on Kieren’s own milky pair. Kieren thought they’d sworn just before, not to do this, they weren’t going to do this. “Kieren…” Simon was crooning this time, and Kieren felt a swell inside him that screamed ‘no’ and ‘leave’ and ‘don’t’ but none of those words came.

“I ran off.” He started, and Simon’s movements continued, his attention still fixed, his eyes flickering up to meet Kieren’s in every pause.

“Why?” He asked as he dragged the denim down, leaving Kieren in only the satin black boxers. He made no movement to remove those, instead caressed this new offering of skin as Kieren raised his feet to toe out of them.

“Because- you have no idea, don’t give me that, why not’s more like it, why shouldn’t I?” Kieren tried to sound bitter but Simon’s fingers touched his sides like he was an artefact. Not like a used boy. “It wasn’t s’posed to be ‘ere... I wasn’t running away to here, I was- going to start a new life.” He shook his head subtly, turned his head and met eyes with a round mirror. He couldn’t look at himself, quickly averted his gaze to look down at Simon again.

“Guess that didn’t happen.” Simon seemed to be making random contributions just to keep him going and that stirred something fiery in Kieren, his fingers tightened in his hair and the man grunted.

“Couldn’t get off the ground, something about-“ His unnecessary breathing hitched, right on cue as Simon dragged his boxers down and he felt nothing. It was all rhythmic, knowing when not to, when to, he hated how engrained, how second nature it had all become. “About passports and re-citizenship, that new Victus group, passed a law that says we’re not citizens, didn’t hear about it till I was stuck in London airport, couldn’t find a pds friendly hotel ‘nd all my stuff got nicked.”

Simon paused, as if he didn’t follow, “My dad voted Victus.” He said, after a stretch of motionlessness. Which explained it.

“Fuck your dad.” He half scoffed, Simon only nodded, seemed troubled for a moment before he rose to his feet, something else certain in his gaze as he caught Kieren by the waist, dragged him back toward the single bed pressed against the wall. He tugged Kieren down and the boy’s knees settled easily on either side of his waist. Simon took that moment to study his long legs; he liked them. Kieren had already noticed.

“That’s not the whole story.” Simon pointed out, and Kieren half smiled, but the smile didn’t stay; it trembled.

“Very astute aren’t you, I can see why you got that degree.” Kieren answered, and his voice croaked and he hated it. He hated how weak he must look, he hated that weakness left him open to be taken advantage of. The quiet buzz of the television downstairs was all the sound that could be heard through the closed door for a minute as Simon studied an anatomy like a doctor on his first cadaver.

“You won’t tell me the rest.” Simon’s omnipotence was starting to drive Kieren mad. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore, but he didn’t want to give him the pleasure of being right. Kieren had to take the power back. He pushed Simon back so that he was pressed into the mattress, finally he looked surprised and Kieren lapped it up. He smirked slightly, but his eyes never perked.

“I didn’t think you really wanted to talk…” He rolled his hips down onto the bulge building in Simon’s pants and as expected the man had to clench his jaws closed to stop the moan. Simon was slow taking his clothes off, his hands shook like Kieren’s did when he was angry hot or scared. Kieren noticed the tracks now, in the light drifting between Simon’s curtains. He was an addict. Kieren wished he could be surprised. He wished that, looking at them, he hadn’t already thought as much.

It didn’t stop him touching him, Kieren didn’t know why. There was the silent knowledge between them that Kieren couldn’t feel a damn thing, but still he absorbed every shape and curve of his body as if it were with his last awed breath. Kieren was slow with him this time, gave Simon the chance to roll the condom on, but his grab for any kind of lubricant went ignored. Kieren didn’t need it, Simon wasn’t the first client of the day.

He tried not to think of Simon that way, he hadn’t lured him here under the premise of propositioning him. Kieren was the one who’d initiated it. He took hold of his throbbing member, and without ever breaking eye contact, he rose and slid onto it, didn’t stop until Simon was sheathed inside of him and the man was moaning in earnest, Kieren’s name on his tongue clear as day.

“Kieren- Christ,” Simon’s breaths rattled like chimes caught in a storm. Kieren was merciless. And the adverts drifting upstairs were muffled by soft moans and quiet ‘yes’s and begs. Kieren took it all, every desperation and gratified moan. He tried to derive value from it, but it made him dizzy. He both hated and loved himself in that moment, watching Simon fall apart in his cold dead hands. He had the power to break him if he wanted, for once, he felt dangerous and wild and unleashed.

“Look at you,” Simon gasped, hands finding Kieren’s face and holding it, slowing his movements, “Like an angel, glowin’ like that. Fierce, aren’t you? I like that.” He cooed, and Kieren felt an angry spike strike as if he were a lightning rod. He wasn’t an angel, he wasn’t trying to be, he rocked backward, tried to broadcast just that, with a fake, sinful sound bubbling up his throat. It didn’t feel entirely like nothing, he at least had something to go on.

Kieren took him without pause then, braced against his chest, fingers spread as he took him in under the scrutiny of The Smiths and properly dead men that plastered Simon’s childhood bedroom. His moans were swallowed by the man’s hungry lips, and he was only released when Simon’s eyes became wide with his end. He came hard, and Kieren was relentless, he didn’t let that be the end. Kieren didn’t let him go until Simon was holding back a yell, one Kieren hoped would carry his name. He slid off and Simon knocked him onto the bed to dispose of the protection. There was nothing romantic about that moment, something the movies and books neglected, Kieren thought.

When Simon returned to him his lips were full of praise and kisses and Kieren drowned in them, vain enough in the moment to grin, to be pleased, to be proud of what he’d done. “Thought you might like that, I never was one to always just lay flat on m’back.” Kieren said, and Simon chuckled close to his naval as he disappeared under the blankets to worship his every inch again. After care, this was entirely new. He felt light, head dropping down to rest on the striped pillow that matched Simon’s duvet set. Simon kissed back up his chest, rested his chin there for a moment, “You’re a vision of holy grace,” He sighed, and Kieren rolled his eyes. “I mean it, darlin’… absolutely flawless, ever looked at yourself?”

“Alright, sex is over, no need to butter me up.” Kieren said, sitting up slowly, his muscles stiff and taught, strung out clinging to his bones. He didn’t hurt though, he couldn’t, so it was just a mild inconvenience. Simon followed suit, feeling around for his pants. Kieren smiled, and then it died. In Simon’s now outstretched hand, all momentary bliss disappeared. As Kieren climbed over him. Simon’s face seemed to fall too, and he crumpled the hundred in his hand.

“What? What’s wrong- it’s all I have, I can get more-“ He tried, worried, he pulled his jeans on and he didn’t bother with the buttons as he pursued Kieren, who was already zipping his fly, back to him.

“I don’t want it, Simon.” Kieren shot, tasted the bitterest disappointment on his tongue as he framed the words.  Simon had misinterpreted the entire situation, yet again, it seemed.

“I don’t understand, Kieren I don’t want to use you like that, you deserve-“

“I deserve to fuck whenever I want without getting a hundred pounds shoved down my throat.” He snapped, and if looks could kill Simon would’ve been crying mercy. He realised his mistake.

“Kieren,” He tried, voice soft, desperate, and it nearly turned Kieren’s head.

“Fuck off, Simon just- don’t. Just don’t.” He sounded disappointed, a touch angry, pointed and sharp enough to cut if Simon drew closer. He was rooted to the spot, Kieren got his clothes in order in time for the door to swing open. Kieren met eyes with an abrasive short man with greying hairs and greyer eyes. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost, the words ‘Simon, who’s this’ tumbling from between his thin lips before Kieren was marching past him. In blind rage –blind hurt, anguish, disappointment- Kieren managed to find the stairs and bolt. He wasn’t proud of it, he didn’t want to be the boy that fucked and ran but he couldn’t stay there in that room, where Simon paid the tithe to touch him. He didn’t want it to be about that, just this once.

This had just been another reminder, on a long list of reminders; this was what he was. Simon was no different, Simon was just like the rest of them. A pretty look and bright eyes meant nothing, and Kieren was too stupid to stop himself for being caught up in them. He wouldn’t be again.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for waiting on this chapter, it’s extra-long for all the time you guys have been waiting, this would’ve been broken up into two chapters but I thought you guys earned it! 
> 
> Thank you so much for the reviews! Honestly they’ve been keeping me going, I don’t know if it’s the ‘cool thing’ to do to reply to them all because I’ve been desperately wanting to reply to every comment but wouldn’t let myself until I’d finished this chapter for you all. Thank you also for the kudos and bookmarks, even just for viewing and giving my fic a chance. I never expected anyone would want to read it, so thank you so so much!
> 
> I had no intention of deserting this either so never fear. Been busy with relatives leading up to Christmas. Regardless, here’s the chapter! More Kieren-centric in future, I’m not sure how this will be weighted with perspectives because I kind of just chose whichever suits what I want to write best.
> 
> Sorry you didn’t get the whole story about Kieren, yet again, but here’s some of it, more will be revealed! With more personal details, at that.


	4. Almost Lover

He worshiped him like the bible said not, like a false idol. His warm fingers – Kieren imagined them to be warm, because he hadn’t felt them – his lips were almost chapped as they brushed his earlobe, as they framed his name, a moan, said he was ‘flawless’, and Kieren could hear his voice like it was real, and when Kieren opened his eyes, when he woke it all slipped away, the thought of touch and the soft chuckle when Kieren squirmed. His eyes were met instead with the back of a different seemingly ebony head, different shoulders, they weren’t muscled and strong; they didn’t look like they could hold the mountain’s weight that Kieren had considered dropping on them. He raised his fingers and traced the shape, closed his eyes and imagined they were those shoulders, and that Simon would be at the end of his touch, that it was his skin. Kieren was angry with himself for wanting as much, opened his eyes and halted his hand, spread his spindly, bird-boned fingers against the man’s shoulder blade. He pretended each ragged rise was Simon’s waiting breath. Simon wasn’t special he tried to remind himself, Kieren didn’t care about him, but there was something so abundantly different about the man he couldn’t place his finger on.

He cared.

As soon as the thought occurred he cleared it, he’d proven last night that he didn’t. So much for his promise, Kieren wouldn’t let himself remember he’d started it, he was the one who’d made it what it was. He wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. The boy sat up slowly in his mess of sheets and clothes. He tip-toed off it and onto the carpeted floor. The night had gone to bed, he was sure now, it must be morning. He changed his clothes he hid his slim build, tugged on a shirt, a too-big sweater and a hooded jumper over it.  His jeans from yesterday were all he could find so they came on next. For once he wouldn't miss the cling of the fabric because it promised him nothing. He tugged his boots onto his feet. Since Simon had come along he’d given up the morning routine with clients. He was out the door with the money tucked away before they could open their eyes. There was a deadly draft sneaking in under the door and Kieren imagined he felt it when he was told by one of the disgruntled clients crashed on the couch as he passed it. Kieren held the man’s arm to his eyes and read the pretend-play Rollex that told him what the time was. His knee began an absent shake as he dropped down in the arm chair, he could wait here, his spat with Simon had been costly; he’d have to get his script filled lest he turn into a mind numbed flesh eating monster again. He tugged the crumpled notes free of his pocket and counted. Four hundred was all he’d made up in the night. It was enough, but he didn’t like how much he could’ve had. The money made it worthwhile, it kept his medication coming in the wake of not having a proper home, anybody to sign off on scripts to say they had two eyes on him. He let his knee shake out of control before he put it to use and got to his feet. He tried not to scream this time when he got his shot, the girl who’d offered to administer his had run the last time she’d done it, it wasn’t even because it hurt. It was because of what he’d seen plastered to his eyelids, a recollection of another misdeed and she’d been unlucky to watch it unfold as if in slow motion. She left him standing, gripping the sink, and she slammed the door before he could even open his eyes. He frightened her. He frightened himself.

The boy’s fingers closed around a towel to his right, boots scuffing the splintered white tiles as he shuffled forward and covered the cracked mirror. He didn’t feel any better about his face now, maybe worse, knowing how it twisted and looked faking love, his gut twisted at the thought of it. His lips pursed in disdain as he fished his iris-always and flesh tone cover up out. It’d been so long since he’d bothered, but Kieren didn’t think he could brave the looks he’d get today. His skin went from deathly white to gleaming peachy and his marble eyes disappeared behind the depthless brown. He was immaculate, his face painted with the precision only an artist could master, as if his skin was the blank canvas. Kieren tugged the towel down only to decide if he was disguised enough to pass for a kid with a pulse. Masked, slathered in his war paint Kieren slipped his fingers into his pocket and he braved the early morning sun as it tried to push through his guarded eyes.

The walk was long, Kieren had died before he could ever get his full licence and even so, where would someone like him find themselves in a position to get a car? He’d have done the bus route if they hadn’t become wise of him, given him a wide birth in case he popped a blue pill and descended into rabid madness. So it was a long walk instead, spent thirty-something minutes trying to straighten the crookedness in his bones before giving up on it entirely. He was glad to be able to walk at all, he’d seen plenty of knees blown by the HVF and never put back together again in the second life. He’d gotten away too easy, and he knew exactly why. Kieren’s boots dragged as the door rasped, announcing his entrance to the building. The chemist had a pair of glasses perched on his fat nose, and he gave Kieren a hard glance. Kieren wished it had been his wife, she was kinder in the face, genetically predisposed to smile in spite of discomfort he thought. The shop was abuzz with those few waiting for scripts to be filled, Kieren didn’t count a single PDS among them, and he’d gotten good at spotting them. His fingers began to fiddle in his pocket, he felt that familiar spike of anxiety that being in a filed room gave him in life, not-lessened by death. There seemed to be two cues, one was at the counter, and another for the overlord at the desk towering on his platform making himself look important. The man making himself look important made himself small upon seeing Kieren, who only bit his lap, blinked slow and watched him squirm.  He watched the colour in the man’s cheeks as he fumbled to pretend he didn’t recognize Kieren.

He shuffled to the back of the cue and watched the sea part like he was Moses. They could tell, then, despite Kieren’s efforts – or like the man behind the counter (who’d experienced firsthand) they knew. He felt like a leper crammed in close quarters with them. Kieren had barely been in line ten minutes before he was slammed by an elbow between the shoulder blades, which wouldn’t have bothered him if it weren’t for the fact it sent him lurching forward into the man in front of him.

“Sorry there, you right?” The voice made Kieren freeze, made his shoulders draw together. He didn’t dare say a word, how the fuck did this happen to him? What had he done to deserve this? Why’d he ever pick a small town, London had been on the table and he’d been too scared to run so far from home. He just drew tight to himself, could almost feel the confusion coming off him.

“Look I said I was sorry.” He repeated, and Kieren wanted to tell him to fuck off quick smart but he did no such thing. Before he could stop it he was being turned by the shoulder and his now dark eyes met with earnest blue.

“Kieren?” Simon said in mingled confusion and shock. Kieren made an expression of dissatisfaction. Didn’t bother to disguise it now he’d ruled Simon out as a potential client there was no need to laugh at his jokes, so to speak. “I… I didn’t recognize you.” Simon said, gesturing at him before letting his hand fall, the other scratching the back of his neck.  “You look…”

“Less dead? Less like a lady of the night?” Kieren offered, arms crossed now, “Maybe you’ve only ever seen me properly in the dark if a bit of makeup and a jumper fools you.” He was snippy, and Simon looked momentarily wounded by his words.

“Not what I meant.” He muttered, before he piped up, “What’re you doing here?” So genuinely perplexed that Kieren wanted to shake the shock out of him so he might have a bit of sense.

“What do you think I’m doing here, I didn’t pop in for some vitamins; I’m only a walking corpse.” He turned his back, so that he was in the line properly again. Simon fell into step beside him.

“Sorry, stupid question.” He said, shaking a bottle in his broad palms absently, Kieren’s darkened eyes flickered to them.

“Didn’t think they’d have what you were into under the counter.” Kieren said sharply, and he knew it was a low blow, he knew that whatever love/hate Simon had with his lady heroin was none of his damn business but he was so fucking furious the words came tumbling. And it was low. To Simon’s credit he seemed not to take it personally.

“Anti-depressants,” Simon said, waving the bottle, the label reading ‘MONROE S.’ in neat Calibri print directly under the bolded ‘nortriptyline’, Kieren recognized the name.  “Dunno why they bother, don’t seem to be doing much good, don’t think there’s any kind of medical cure for it if you ask me.” Kieren found himself agreeing with the statement before he had time to remember he was mad with Simon.

“Depressed then, are you?” Kieren asked, tapping his finger against his upper arm, it didn’t sound accusatory, it sounded like a real question, hard as he’d tried to distance himself from it entirely.

“That’s what the doctor says, a chronic sadness, melancholy, call it what you want.” Simon answered, his eyes never drawing away from Kieren. He’d never felt this self-conscious wearing his cover up. He took a few forward steps and Simon mirrored him at his side. 

“Right.” Kieren muttered, glancing at him before fixing his gaze forward. He wanted to get out, wanted to run before the memory of what he imagined Simon’s fingers to be like struck him again, his eyes had already drifted back to his restless fingers against the bottle of pills. His body’s lack of responsiveness meant nothing, he could want, find himself longing, had thought something must’ve broken in him when he’d not wanted it since death. He put it up to being so often touched when it was the last thing on his mind.

“Why’ve you got all that on, the mousse and the lenses?” Simon asked, seemingly out of nowhere, but Kieren knew that it was from minutes of long contemplation.

“Uh, because I’d scare the livin’ daylights out of people if I just marched in ‘ere.” Kieren said, as if it was obvious, craning his neck to look over the slowly dwindling lines heads. He could at least count how close to the front he was by the heads.

“You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, Kieren, you don’t need that,” His voice was so assured, sickeningly sincere and warm. It horrified Kieren, he couldn’t mean a word of it.

“Says the bloke who lives with his dad.” Kieren muttered, and he knew it was spiteful, Christ he knew he was being awful but the sooner Simon turned his back on him the better off they’d all be.

“What’s with you Kieren? One minute you’re on me the next you’re- whole face screws up at the sight of me, I don’t understand it, or you.” Simon hissed, lowly, glancing around as if to see if anybody was listening to them. Kieren didn’t bother to look, something about that made Kieren angry, and he drew out the notes from his pocket, crumpled in his fists in anticipation of reaching the desk. 

“What’s with me?!” He snickered, and Simon made a face that told him to quiet, but Kieren didn’t. “What’s with _you_ , you came to me that night full well knowing what I was; I made it perfectly clear, you want to see me regularly? Fine, but you know where the line is, and you’ve crossed it a hundred times only to double back again – I hate it, I hate not knowing what this is.” His voice rose and heads turned and Kieren sank like their glances punched a hole in him. When his gaze flickered back Simon’s eyes were firmly fixed on him.

“Tell me what you want.” Simon’s voice was soft, and Kieren wanted to strangle it out of him, wanted to wake him up from that stupid romanticized brain space he’d placed Kieren in. “I’ll do anything I can to give it to you.” He added, softer still, earnest. So honest that it made Kieren’s dead heart feel heavy, something familiar; remembered all too strongly.

“I’m a prostitute.” Kieren muttered, stepping forward in the line.

“I don’t care.” Simon answered, mirroring him and disturbing an Inner Health display that he skirted in time to stop it falling completely.

“People pay to sleep with me, Simon.” Kieren’s lips pursed, a stern head shake following that he hoped would be discouraging.

“I know, what prostitute means, Kieren,” He pointed out, reaching out and resting a hand on his shoulder. “And I know about those people… myself included, twice.” Simon added poignantly. Kieren looked disbelieving, turning to face the front of the line again. He almost wished Simon might disappear and be gone when next his head turned.

“I’m dead.” He stated solemnly, as if trying to pick holes in whatever picture perfect image Simon had painted the pair of them in. Kieren would gladly paint himself out.  

“We can’t all be perfect.”

That brought a sound of genuine frustration from Kieren’s lips, and Simon could only grin, let out a breathy scoff.

“That a yes?”

“You didn’t ask me anything.” Kieren answered point blank. He knew what Simon meant, knew what he wanted. And he couldn’t have it. Not only that, but he couldn’t really want him, not like that, Kieren wasn’t the kind to keep around for very long, even the ones that thought they loved him when he was their angel spread in bed got tired of him. They all did, eventually. It was Simon’s turn to be frustrated, and Kieren took a great deal of pleasure out of it. Thought nastily that he deserved it for being so fucking sentimental. He didn’t get another word in before Kieren was at the counter, looking up into the dull hazel eyes of the chemist, who blithered and stammered. Kieren instinctually turned his head to one side and turned his charms on, batted lashes and pressed lips, his fingers moves gingerly on the counter tops edge, gentle, and he watched the man’s eyes flicker to them.

Kieren pressed the crumpled fifty pounds into his hand and watched the other shudder as he turned rigidly to snatch another dosage of neurotryptoline, careful not to back away far from the desk. Kieren could feel a second pair of eyes on their exchange, and for a time hoped Simon was jealous, thought maybe it would wake him up. The blushing chemist pressed the box labelled ‘WALKER K.’ into his hands and Kieren spun on his heel.

“You’re just going to walk away, just like that.” Simon said, not moving at first, but when Kieren showed no signs of stopping he started up again after him. “After all we’ve been through, the two of us.” He tried, although it sounded to Kieren more like he was testing the waters.

“Simon, it’s barely been a week, and you’ve seen me three times, and all three times you had yer-“ He realised he was speaking too loudly, lowered his voice to a mumble, “You had yer dick up my arse so why don’t you drop this ‘all we’ve been through’ bullshit.”

“Worth a shot.” Simon mumbled, and when Kieren started to walk again Simon caught him by the arm, gently.

“Simon you don’t know the first thing about me.” Kieren tugged, but Simon didn’t let go, not until Kieren tugged a third time.

“I’d like to.” And Christ did he sound like he meant it. Kieren stopped. He turned his head and he looked at him, scrutinized him as if he expected to see it, the change; the lie. But there was nothing, Simon’s gaze bore into him deeply enough that he didn’t think he could fabricate it. He liked to think he wasn’t so naïve that he was caught in anyone’s trap, put under any bodies spell anymore. The moment dragged, suspended, until Kieren was in motion again, and Simon was following on behind him.

“Come with me!” Simon called to him, when there was a meter between them, and when Kieren looked back over his shoulder his arms were half spread, before they fell to his sides, and his fingers curled around the sleeves. What was that, what was it that made Simon –who was not by any measure small- shrink, like he was trying to take up as little possible space? It was vulnerability. Kieren didn’t know what to do with it, his lips fell apart, but no words were uttered. They stood like that, in the street, Kieren took two steps, and they were an arm’s breadth apart. “Come with me.” He repeated, softer this time, ducking his head as if holding his gaze burned him.  

“Alright.” Kieren didn’t know what he was doing, how he kept getting dragged back into his mess like this. If it hadn’t been enough to put him off the first time, being taken in Simon’s childhood bedroom, barely clothed with his father in the doorway looking at him like he was Satan incarnate, having hundred pound notes pushed down his throat. He couldn’t stand that, he couldn’t stand that he kept being brought back in every time he ran, like he was on a slack rope and all Simon had to do was pull it.

He hated feeling powerless.

When he fell into step beside Simon he realised where they were going, he wasn’t stupid, and he was what he was. He’d seen the inside of enough messy one-night, one-hour motels to know. He stopped in place, but then Simon turned his head to look at him he offered his hand, and his fingers were half obscured by his sleeves and there was something so young, so innocent and child-like about it that Kieren’s smaller fingers immediately knitted with them. The gratification was instant, Simon’s entire demeanour softened, and where Kieren played at grace Simon was a natural. He ebbed and flowed when he walked, and Kieren could only stumble beside him blind.

Kieren ignored the peeling wallpaper on the walls and the cracked floors, the frayed carpet and missing edging. He didn’t pay attention to the way the man at the counter pressed that warn wooden door tag into Simon’s hand without question. He didn’t like that the entire thing, navigating the building was near habitual. He didn’t like to be the next body in the sheets, to return to a lovers haunt but he didn’t speak. He didn’t know why he did this, he got nothing out of it, all he did was fake it and writhe and hope it was enough to bring him undone, and it always ended a mess. He couldn’t voice any of this, because Simon was dragging him inside, and to its credit the room was cleaner than he’d expected. Bare, mirror unit, a bed, a side table, tellie pushed to one side.

When Kieren turned his head next Simon was backing him up to it. He raised his hands and pressed them to Simon’s shoulders. Self-control it screamed, and Simon hesitated, faltered, his confidence was shot and Kieren was turning his head away from him. His own startled eyes found him in the mirror. Simon followed his gaze to his reflection, and it never found his own, looked at Kieren’s alone like he was miraculous, like Simon couldn’t believe what his eyes found. He raised a hand, using the mirror solely for direction, and pressed his finger to Kieren’s peachy cheek, he ran his thumb across it and watched it come away stained, looked at the pale flesh that peered out underneath. Kieren turned his head then, looked at Simon’s finger swimming in his vision. His eyes flickered up to Simon’s and he stood, edged out from under him and disappeared into the bathroom, he snatched a face cloth up, and he ran it under the tap.

When Kieren emerged again Simon was sitting, waiting for him patiently, Kieren clutched the cloth and dropped down beside him, Simon’s fingers twitched, and he took the cloth from him. “You don’t need all of this.” He murmured, and for a moment Kieren believed him as his hand raised and wiped the first stroke of skin tone away, watched the white death creep up under each loving cleanse. He closed his eyes, pressed his lips tight together. “Look at me.” Simon said, echoing his own words, but they were gentle this time, and Kieren could swear he felt his fingers when they tipped up his chin. He opened them, and Simon cleaned him, and when he was almost done Kieren lurched forward, captured his lips with his own, his skin a patchy damp mess. But Simon either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He just kissed him back, unsure at first, as if he didn’t trust himself, before he became more certain. Kieren didn’t like anything about this, or he tried to tell himself that. He felt Simon’s fingers on the bottom of his hood only when the fabric tugged. He pulled back. Looked down at his hands.

“Wait.” He breathed, stumbled back, glanced back at the mirror facing his back before he reached for the zipper himself and tugged it down slowly let it fall from his shoulders and hit the floor. Simon sat back, watched him avidly: fixated. Kieren only uttered a soft laugh.

“Don’t get too excited, it’s just a couple of jumpers.” He mumbled, looking down for a moment, almost shy.

“It’s perfect.” Simon answered back, an encouraging smile on his lips that was too much for Kieren to stand. He turned his attention back to what he was doing. His fingers hooked on his jumper hem next, and he dragged that over his head. Simon’s momentary excitement dulled when he saw the shirt underneath, he gave him a disbelieving look and Kieren grinned.

“Wait on,” He shot, nose wrinkled as he peeled it off, his neck and collar bones stained with the cover up line, blurred and blended streaks. Simon moved as if to stand before Kieren shook his head, fingers hesitantly settling on the waist band of his jeans. He undid the button first, before he tugged the denim down his thin legs, stepped out of them before it was all apparently too much for Simon. The older took hold of Kieren’s hips and tugged him over, started to pepper his abdomen in kisses that Kieren’s gaze said he couldn’t feel. His fingers hooked against his underwear before he looked up and saw Kieren’s expression. There was nothing in it that said he wanted this and either Simon had seen it for the first time or Kieren had stopped hiding it. He stopped. His hands fell to the backs of Kieren’s legs, stroked his thighs before he rested his forehead against his frozen skin.

“You don’t want this at all.” He whispered. Kieren shook his head before he realised Simon couldn’t see, and he swallowed.

“It’s not that… I just- I can’t feel it.” Kieren admitted, and Simon looked up at him then.

“Not at all?”

“Not at all.” Kieren replied, Simon looked pained for a moment, as if the idea Kieren couldn’t determine his touch injured him in some way. Kieren didn’t particularly enjoy the fact either, he wanted to know, now, accepted that he wanted to know the feeling of Simon’s hands and his lips and wanted to know what it felt like for him to be so deep inside him his insides strained.

“S’pose that means not the last couple times either,” Simon mumbled, and Kieren pressed his lips tight together, shook his head. Simon nodded slowly, fingers tracing absent patterns on the backs of his legs that Kieren couldn’t feel in the slightest. “Stay for a bit instead, then?”  Simon offered and everything in Kieren urged him to refuse, but for some reason all he could manage was:

“Yeah, okay.” As he let Simon drag him like a rag doll onto the cheap bed, let himself be laid down on the generic duvet cover and the flat pillows for the first time without any expectation of sex, without having anything hard pressed to the base of his spine, making a damp patch on his shirt, or his skin. In fact Simon lay facing him, eyes on his, and he looked so far away but so close and Kieren could reach out to touch him but didn’t think he’d feel it either, looking at him that way.

“Still got your contacts in.” He pointed out, and Kieren only mustered a small ‘oh’ before he sat up to take them out. When he settled down again Simon’s eyes were closed, and his arm wrapped around the others slender frame, tugging him closer.

“Simon it’s the middle of the day.” Kieren scoffed, but Simon only hummed.

“You’ll leave me when it gets dark, let me have this.” He replied, and Kieren’s heart might’ve sunk to the bottom if it had the capacity to do more than remain in his chest unwithering. It was true though, he thought, because as much as he wanted to say he'd stay it would be a lie. He’d be gone with the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How sad am I? Posting this chapter literally on Christmas here, sorry it’s been a busy two weeks! Flat out, family coming up and all –but hey, Merry Christmas everyone, here’s another Kieren-centric chapter! Simon for the next one, got to dart back to him eventually don’t we? 
> 
> Again, thanks to everyone who comments, kudos, bookmarks and reads, I know I say this every chapter but honestly it keeps me going, gives me motivation to actually keep it up, I re-read everyones comments, every single one, and check my kudos and it keeps me going! I’ll try to get these chapters going and finished for you all more frequently! Thank you so much for your patience, and Happy Holidays!


	5. Catch Your Death

He breathed in, and the scent was gone. On the fringes of consciousness he realised. The dead weight was gone. The smell of cheap perfume and other men’s colognes and powder was just a lingering scent on the collar of his own shirt. When he opened his eyes, the pillow beside his had a caramel smear of make up on it, the bed was dishevelled in the waxing crescent moon of his body shape. He wanted to smear the peach skin cover over his fingers and un-paint Kieren’s Picasso of a disguise, he wanted to take it all away again and lay him bare, not as he had when he’d fucked him but something so much more than that. So much more than love, was pealing it away, seeing Kieren in the light of day, bare faced, and vulnerable, and lying under his arm. He felt the keen sting of the lost lover all again, all anew.  He was reminded of a poem he’d written about in his university course, the arbitrary Poe piece that he’d taken after a rejection of ‘The Raven’, ‘loved with a love that was more than love—. I and my Annabel Lee.’  That’s as far away as Kieren was to him now, his Annabel Lee, as distant as in his sepulchre there by the sea.  
  
Simon could see that the sun was gone, that in all absence of its warmth the cold of night settled. He’d have to go home, now, he’d have to go home, and face his four walls and his band posters and the feeling of his father’s eyes piercing to the hilt of a dagger’s blade on his back. He looked at the bed, he looked at what almost happened and he absorbed it. Kieren couldn’t feel him, he couldn’t feel it when he kissed him, when he trailed his hands across his skin, when his breath caught in the cradle of his long neck. He felt none of it. On the other hand –and Simon tried not to think of this hand- Kieren couldn’t feel any of them, the men that used his shoulder blades to carry their sins and leaned their weight into him to spill and fill him. He didn’t know if he found it better or worse, that way.  
  
Simon got to his feet, he pulled his jacket on, he slipped his feet into his shoes, he picked up the wooden placard, swung the keys on his fingers, and tried to let the numbness win. His heavy footfalls carried him to dump the key on the counter, he didn’t take the knowing snuggle-toothed smirk that screamed ‘I know’ because he didn’t. He didn’t know, and Simon wasn’t in the mood to look into the face of that certainty.

“He was a looker wasn’t he? I always liked the read heads.” The man said, tapping he wood of the key holder against the cheap formica counter top, it made Simon visibly shift, as if a shiver had run down his spine.

“He was.” He agreed easily, waiting for the man to tell him he could go, but then his beady dark eyes glinted, and he ran his fingers through his oily hair, and Simon felt so suddenly sick he wanted to double over.

“The things I’d’ve done… hope you got your money’s worth, mate.” This man- this beast, growled, growled with such threat in his tone that the ‘things’ he’d have ‘done’ needed no description. And to only think it filled Simon with an inexplicable holy fury.

“Leave it.” He hissed, and there was a blatant threat in that, he didn’t try to disguise the sanguine temper in his chest, he didn’t make nice and glint his eyes, he balled fists and he drew away. He feared if he heard another word he might kill him. The idea that this man, and these men, the hundreds of shiny eyed fat fisted men tried to lay hands on his narrow waist, tried to kiss his throat, tried to bite their mark into the line of his hip bone; it made Simon hateful and mean and most of all angry enough to break bones. His anger was twisted into a clenched jaw and locked shoulders, his angers was clear in the furrow to his brow and the heavy gaze.

The air was sobering, but it chilled him. He wished he’d thought to drive, he wished his father trusted him to drive, he wished he had another hot spoon and a plastic lighter and his poison. He didn’t care that it was dark, nor did he care what ungodly hour carried him through the door. He was a grown man, poor decisions didn’t reflect a lack of maturity; to Simon his bad decisions were not involuntary reflexive responses to a youth wanting waste. They were simply reasonable responses to this nothing, anything better than nothing.  
  
He tried for the quietest click of the door when he pulled it against the night. He heard the buzz and feedback ebbing from the lounge and considered himself safe. He let himself unfurl until he heard that grating bark of a voice abrasive against his ears. Simon made himself small again, tall and drawn in. “Sorry dad?” He tried, because the tone of the words had left him rubbed so raw he never caught a single one of them.  
  
“Who was he Simon, that- _filth_ ,” Iain Monroe was the kind of man that brought pleasure out of it, out of calling anyone else hard angry words, since his wife had gone all the softness had died in him. “The… corpse. Half dressed. In your room.” Iain grated, and Simon felt something then, he felt it white hot digging into his chest, burning his lungs. It was anger. It was rage.    
  
“Dad, leave it.” Simon warned, felt the words reverberate again. _Leave it. Leave it_. Waving a sweater obscured hand. There was a warning, a warning that reared like red cape to a bull. The man ran at it. Warning was a challenge.  
  
“I won’t be leavin’ it, I’m not having my son taking those monsters to bed, bad enough that he’s-“ Iain began.  
  
“That he’s what dad? A bloke? Go on, get it out while we’re here, might as well come out with it all.” The younger snipped, and never had he spoken like this to him, never had he done more than bend to his will like copper on heat but he wouldn’t hear a single word about Kieren, not Kieren.  
  
“Don’t you dare speak to yer father like that what would your mother say?!” He hissed, and the bite in his tone made Simon’s eyes wide. He couldn’t believe it, he couldn’t believe the man said what he said, that he the son- the work of this monstrosity, had heard what he’d heard.  
  
“You’ve got no right, because you know how she was about me, it was always you that had the problem. It was _you_ that put me out to start with.” Simon’s words became so harsh with spite that his mouth felt thick, tongue heavy.  
  
“I’m not havin’ a fuckin’ necro under this roof d’you hear me, son?” He warned, Simon froze, he was filled an absolute fear, a mania. There was silence as the words, the implications of them, settled over Simon like a persistent storm cloud. But it was a transparent one.  
  
“Alright.” Simon relented, raised his hands, a salute. His father seemed momentarily pleased with himself, “I’ll not live under this roof, then.” He added, and all smugness, all pleasantry was wiped clean.

“Simon…” He said ‘Simon’ in that way that begged, called to his saint-like name sake and beckoned him back. But he wouldn’t hear it, Christ was a desecrated ground to him now, the apostles were broken stained glass and reaching for them cut his fingers. He couldn’t pray, there was only one way he could find an ‘oh god’ on his tongue, and it was not in bended knee at the altar. He snatched up a duffle bag by the door and he trudged upstairs. He didn’t take the books, he didn’t pick up a single cd. He stuffed is bag full of sweaters, the one that smelled of Kieren, the ones that didn’t. He gathered only the essentials, snatched up the picture of his mother in his greedy breaking hands, and he took it held to his chest.  
  
He reached the bottom of the stairwell and his father waited in his place, in suspended animation he seemed to stare in loss at where Simon had been. He was snapped into live action when his son passed, he ripped the photo from his grasp and he threw it at the door so hard the glass became fractured and the wood splintered. Simon was frozen in fear only long enough to be told to ‘get out’ before he scrambled her memory from the wreck his father had made, held the photo in his hands.  
  
“Dad,” Simon tried, clutching the glossy picture in his white knuckled fists.  
  
“You don’t deserve her, you never did.” The man bristled, and Simon sunk. His body sallow, a husk.

He left then, he’d made his bed; it was time to lay in it.  
  
The air was crisp as it had been when he entered, and Simon’s mind wandered to that maddeningly beautiful dead thing again. He was angry with him. He wasn’t angry with him for being what he was – not dead, or a body for hire-  but for being lit with flames so hot it burned to kiss and for being so fucking beautiful it hurt, that it branded to his lids so to close his eyes was to see him in double. It was beauty like this that made him turn his back on the man who raised him, it didn’t matter that Iain had been no good at being a father, only played at the role for his wife’s sake. He inhaled and the air whistled past his closed throat, and he breathed out to see it like a wisp of smoke on the air. Simon wished he hadn’t tried to press all his bills into Kieren’s dainty cold palms, he might’ve been able to buy a hit that would last long enough he’d forget what he’d done and with who.

He could find him, he could make Kieren make him forget. He could blame Kieren for what he’d done but the fact of the matter was Simon was too clever and too educated to let his heart believe that Kieren Walker was the eye of this storm. This problem was entirely his own. He wanted to see him, still. He wanted to put his hands on him and sink into Kieren’s skin- Christ he wished he could be under anyone else’s skin that wasn’t his, he’d take Kieren’s cold unfeeling flesh. Not to feel would be bliss in this moment. He doubled over when he reached the tunnel, slumped and crouched and held his head until he couldn’t stand it. He had no friends, no other family, he didn’t even have Kieren. Not really.

He felt the dampness of the brick touch his skin through his jumper, make the wool cling to his clammy back. It was a bed, he could pay him, he could hold him; he could pretend. Simon made way to him in his mind, he knew how to find the place in his sleep, had it mapped out perfectly as if the lines on his hand were a road map, palmistry to his real life line, to where he was.

Simon rose when seeing him projected on the walls of his mind wasn’t enough, he had to touch him, he had to be so tangible and so fragile in his hands that Simon could feel the brittle shift of his lopsided bones.

Simon’s feet could carry him blind in jarring winds on hand and knee. He could get to him even if God took everything from the boy that meant the man could find him. The door felt too heavy when he tried to have it yield, when he tried to make it give and spill music from the gap. Eventually someone must have heard him calling bloody murder –when had he begun to scream?- beating his fists to bruise against the metal, because it buckled and a blonde nearly caught him. He didn’t thank her, he didn’t make a sound to show she so much as registered.

He stumbled through the hot press of sweated skin on skin and clawed to the hall, he fought through the churning ocean of bodies that obscured his path to him. Simon’s heart beat into his throat, rattled by each ear to remind him how stupid he was as he finally splintered wood and broke into the hall. The only sound that met him here came from behind closed doors. Cries, yelps, moans, a symphony of make-believe love from make-believe lovers who paid their partner in capital for their pantomime of a living, willing partner.  
  
He found Kieren’s door and he didn’t think, he didn’t think until he found one fist brought blood to the chipped paint, and the movement inside the room was stifled by Kieren’s voice speaking the word ‘wait’. He heard no wait, he heard a guttural groan, he heard skin against skin, he heard a sharp gasp and a pretend moan, because he knew better now that Kieren couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel any of them, did they know that? Did that make it better for them?  Did it turn their hearts in agony that he’d never know how gentle they touched him?  
  
Simon called his name, ‘Kieren’, or at least he heard a voice rasp it that sounded much like his own. And soon it became a broken mantra against the wood until it too gave. He didn’t know how long he had stood, begging in name for him to let Simon in. But it wasn’t Kieren’s eyes that locked his. But he didn’t have time to deal with the indignation of it, he could only grasp his shirt and throw him half-dressed into the hall. He ignored the cuss, he entered the room and slammed the door, and he saw Kieren hidden under a good thick blanket now. Simon’s eyes widened in recognition of him. He ignored the fists that had replaced his own, pounding the door.

He still had the photo clutched in his bloodied palms, it was bent now, and Kieren looked as if he might hit Simon until he saw it. He raised his bird boned, beautifully thin fingers to snatch it from him, smooth it against his lap.

“Who is she?” He asked. That was all it took, Simon dropped down on the edge of the mattress and drew in so tight on himself he almost couldn’t breathe.

“Mum.” He explained, or he tried to explain, Kieren had asked him a question and he didn’t dare not answer. “She died in the rising, that’s the last picture I took with her, that was after graduation.” He went on, felt ‘mum’ didn’t do her justice.

Kieren needed no explanation, clearly, people only died in the rising in one way.  There was a moment of silence. Kieren smoothed his thumb over the picture, over Simon’s younger smiling face, over the smile on his lips. Simon watched him at it and then he parted his lips as if to speak, only for an agonized sound to come tumbling. Kieren put the picture down, and he raised his arms, he caught Simon around the shoulders and brought him to rest against his ice cold bony body. He sheltered him as he caught his breath. “She looks like you, the eyes an’ the hair.” He mumbled. Simon let out a snicker that turned into a dry sob.

There was no movement, and the fists against the door turned silent, foot falls carried the broad chested sinner away from the bed chambers of Simon’s Maddona.

“Did you get paid?” Simon asked, not because he was angry, or resented it, but because it occurred to him now, now his head wasn’t closed with grief.

“Doesn’t matter.” Which was a no, as good as a no. Simon had made Kieren let himself be pushed to the floor mattress, let Kieren be used and get nothing for it.

“It does matter, Kieren that’s the whole point of it, they come here, they get to- to defile you and then they pay you for it.” Simon’s words were biter, and Kieren’s cold fingers against his scalp stopped moving.

“Christ Simon, you weren’t so flippin’ high and mighty about it when you were the one paying.” He scathed, and it burned. It did, this was that flame inside Kieren that nothing Simon did could put out, it hurt him more now, vulnerable and open wounded to Kieren’s saving grace, only to have his flesh scorched.

“How long are you going to keep harping on that?! I’m not- I’m not like them, Kieren, I made a mistake… I know that.” He began, sitting up, taking Kieren’s hollow cheeks into his hands, feeling the sharp a-line of his cheek bones. “You’re fucking infuriating.” He stroked his fingers along the underside of his jaw, spread his thumbs and let one brush the underside of his bottom lip. Kieren didn’t bother to pretend he felt it anymore. He didn’t gasp, and Simon’s insides crumbled.

“No one’s twisting your arm to make you come and see me, you know,” Kieren said like the words stung him, and he tried to pull away. Simon let him, Simon wouldn’t be like those men, he wouldn’t stalk passed Kieren like he was prey.  Like he was his due. “You could just, fuck off, actually, if you wanted.”

“I don’t want.” He answered, let his hands fall in his lap, noticed how Kieren drew around himself, conscious of the fact he only had the blanket between his body and Simon’s. “You don’t get it Kieren, you’ve got no idea… you think yourself so much less then you are, what’s stopping you from giving up the person you’ve become, and becoming the person you want to be?”

Kieren sneered, visibly sneered at him, “Right, well you can carry that self-help bullshit out of ‘ere I’m having none of it.” He snapped like a string wrung too tight, hanging by a thread. “You know what it is? It’s men like you- that twist me up and make me feel like yer care, but y’don’t.”

“I’m nothing like them Kieren, I made mistakes, but I’m not- I think you’re more than just some pretty thing I can waste time with,” He insisted.

“It’s not about that- it’s not about that at all, yer not hearing me.” Kieren snarled venomously. “It’s because you think you’re not like them that’s the problem, Simon.”

“I don’t understand.” He persisted. “I do care. Kieren, I care about you… about us, I care. You just don’t see it yet, but I’ll wait, I’ve got time.” There was an ache in his chest now. “I won’t be like them, I promise you. I won’t lay you bear and leave, that’s you- you’re the one that leaves in the morning. I’ll be there if you want me to.” Simon went on. Bless Kieren, bless him, he shook his head, he took pity on a broken face and held it in his palms, cradled it. And kissed him. Simon wanted to stop him, wanted to prove him wrong. But he couldn’t not kiss him.

“I’ve got nowhere else to go.” The Irishmen breathed, hands settling on his sides, against his cold skin his palms turned cool. “I’ve got no one, Kieren… I wouldn’t ask this… if I had another option.” Simon didn’t ask him a damn thing, but Kieren’s heavy lids flickered, and he knew he understood.

“You’ve got tonight.” He whispered, and Simon knew he’d switched off, he knew he’d turned into that alluring beautiful-wild thing that invited him to bed the first time. Simon wanted to shake him out of it, he wanted to bring out the Kieren that hated him over this Kieren that gave him false-love.

“S’all I need… just tonight.” Simon answered him, and Kieren sat up, slinking out from under the covers.

“Just tonight.” Kieren repeated, and his skinny legs braced against Simon’s lap. He took it all wrong, he didn’t mean this. He wasn’t like them. He wasn’t like every other man that bent him over. But he was so weak. And so wicked. And Simon’s hands touched his thighs brushed over his smoothskin, settled on his naked back and gently pushed forward, his lips brushed Kieren’s collar bones and Kieren's body swelled, rocked, rose to meet him like he felt, move flawlessly, so much so he had to remind himself Kieren gained no pleasure from this.

“I’ll be good to you, Kieren… I won’t do this to you anymore.” He breathed, fingers trembling on his legs as his palms spread.

“Shut up, for Christ’s sake, stop talkin’ for five minutes, would you?” Kieren answered, using the momentum of Simon’s exhale to frame his words. Kieren would make a liar out of him, again and again, just like that.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for how late this is, I'm back at uni! Which as you can imagine- is a lot. Regardless, for any progress updates or dates or messages please check my profile if you're wondering about this fic, I will try to keep you updated there-- I hope I haven't lost you all, I know the chapters have been going up very inconsistently but my schedule has been flat out. Anyways, I don't want to give any spoilers but some of your comments are very insightful, and very close to my own ideas which is wonderful. Every single comment is a joy to read, and it's what keeps me going! I say this ever chapter, but I still mean it! Anyway here's another Simon chapter- more Kieren to come.


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